simple truths

Not that there has been a conscious need or occasion but till now Jispa has never gone alone in the lift. Whenever she goes down it has been with us. So today in the morning while Jispa was wearing her socks, I had to go down early for transferring some stuff from the boot of the car. So I told jasmine that I would down and she could send Jispa in the lift alone. First Jispa was a little circumspect but the urge to be independent triggered a mixed reaction. In the end independence won. I went down and then from top Jasmine indicated that Jispa is coming down on her own. I went near the lobby to find her coming out of the lift with a big grin on her face. She told me that she wanted to do this everyday. Sure! Its not that I don’t trust her, it’s the lift that I don’t trust. This lift is not a 100% safety record lift. We’ll see. It will be some time for us parents to grow up and relax.

Taking another shot at ‘the white tiger’, I think the publishers have not read the book completely. Adiga (on page 228), takes a barb at the business books when the protagonist says “I am aware that it is a common feature of those cellophane-wrapped business books to feature small side-bars”. Cellophane wrapped business books?? He says. Little did Adiga realize that his book would also be sold in cellophane wrapping. It is such an irritating practice. They are forcing the reader to buy on reputation and not on actual content. A book lover loves to feel the book in his hand, be for a minute with it. He shuts out the world as he feels the cover, turns over to the back. At this point he takes a decision whether to explore it further, read inside, see the chapters and then purchase it. A book lover passes over the temptation to buy it at one third the price at the pirate stall to buy a proper royalty paid edition. It is thanks to this breed that the piracy in books has not reached the proportions of piracy in music. The core target book lover is just not a cheat. But cellophane wrapping is cheating him. Every time the big brother tries to hoodwink the customer, disregards his love, habits & values…the consumer will come back with a vengeance and the big brother will not know what hit him. The music industry is suffering from their own high handedness and the need to drive the premium unnaturally high. It’s pretty stupid.
I am sure in the case of The white tiger, there are many people who believe (likeme) that a booker prize winner would be too deep, profound and would use English that no one understood. With all these shrink wrapped books on the shelves; I never had the chance to dispel my belief leading me to not buy the book. Only after it was gifted to me did I realize that it’s actually quite a decent book with simple English, highly understandable. This exactly what I was telling V-inu. It’s quite a nice simple English book. Probably Harry Potter has higher English usage. I am three fourth of the way to finish the book. so far so good. I must read one decent fiction every year.